Current Exhibitions

Origins: Life Where the River Bends is a story of many Detroit beginnings. It invites guests to explore the lives and events that have shaped - and been shaped by - the area on the river now called Detroit. This region’s First People called it Waawiiyaataanong, or “where the river bends,” but it would earn many monikers over the years including “le détroit” and the “Motor City.”

Adjacent to the Allesee Gallery of Culture, visitors find the Motor City Music exhibition — an interactive, participatory space that explores the rich legacy of Detroit’s music from Gospel to Motown and all things in between.

The Detroit Historical Museum’s most beloved signature exhibit, located on the lower level, is undoubtedly the Streets of Old Detroit. 

Step into Detroit’s past and experience the city’s dramatic transformation from rural frontier town to industrial giant in three time periods: the 1840s, 1870s and 1900s.

Joseph Parent, Detroit’s first recognized brewer, arrived in 1706, just five years after the new French trading post was established. Generations of English, Irish, Belgian, Polish, German and Detroit-born brewers followed, shaping a local scene that thrives to this day. Learn more about the city’s beer barons, neighborhood breweries and beer-drinking customs in Detroit’s Brewing Heritage.

In addition to local brewing legends like Stroh’s, Altes and Goebel, the exhibit explores the smaller breweries that served as neighborhood gathering places and the brewers who played an outsized part in the city’s cultural and political scene. 

Imagine hearing the unmistakable sound of a baseball meeting the full force of Hall of Famer Al Kaline’s bat at Tiger Stadium. Imagine feeling the thrill as the solid, brass-colored elevator doors slowly opening onto the 12th floor of downtown Hudson’s, revealing aisle upon aisle of your favorite toys. Imagine working on the assembly line at Ford Motor Company when the first Model T rolled off it and, shortly thereafter, drove onto Woodward.

The America’s Motor City exhibition tells the fascinating stories of both how cars built metro Detroit and how metro Detroit built cars, as well as why Detroit became the Motor City.

The exhibit incorporates the museum’s popular Automotive Showplace exhibit at its entrance, where cars from our collection are featured.

It took Louis Meier, Sr. twelve years to build his clock.  Its hand-carved mahogany base, detailed glass clock face and intricate mechanisms made it a Detroit marvel when it debuted in his jewelry store at East Grand Boulevard and Gratiot Avenue in 1904.

A crowd favorite for years, The Glancy Trains are from the collection of Alfred R. Glancy Jr. (1908–1973), real estate financier and former-owner of the Empire State Building in New York City. During the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Glancy enjoyed hosting “train parties” for friends, neighbors, schoolchildren and scout groups each holiday season at his home in Grosse Pointe Shores.